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In the Israeli election, set for April 9th, the polls show Benny Gantz is still leading, but Bibi Netanyahu is still the favorite to become the next Prime Minister. And why is that? Unless Gantz wakes up and shakes up the campaign, his Blue & While Party may win a couple of seats more than Likud, but he will not be able to forge a 61-seat majority in the 120-member Knesset.

What to make of it? The US Commander in Chief has just countermanded his previous order to withdraw the remaining two thousand troops from northeastern Syria within a month or so. This after previously informing Turkish dictator Erdogan in a casual telephone conversation. However, after consulting his top foreign policy advisor, John Bolton, Trump has put the kaibosh on Erdogan's plan to clobber the Kurds, maybe once and for all.

"All quiet on the Isreali-Gaza front," at least, for the time being. After seven consecutive months of the continual firebombing of Israeli civilians, Hamas has reigned in tens of thousands of rioters, who also tried to break through the border fence and enter Israel. Hamas accepted an Egyptian cease-fire proposal based on a 30 million dollar payoff (in two installments) from the oil-rich Gulf State of Qatar. This eleventh-hour solution prevented another all-out war between Gaza and Israel after Hamas launched nearly 500 rockets at Israel within 24 hours.

Amidst this escalation, a covert Israeli unit was spotted by Hamas during an operation deep inside Gaza. The small Israeli team was apparently on a mission to bug Hamas communications, an attempt to cope with the fire-bombing. In the ensuing firefight, the Israeli commander was killed, as well as the Hamas commander in the area, and six other Hamas militants. It was a very close call for the Israeli unit that had to be extricated in a very risky helicopter operation. At this point, Gaza and Israel were on the brink, apparently about to take the next fatal step to all-out war.

The Munich massacre occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, when members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and eventually murdered by Black September, a group with ties to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization.

Two of Israel's super-hawks, PM Bibi Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Leiberman, are doing their utmost to prevent the Palestinian firebombing of Israeli civilians from erupting into another all-out war. The outcome still hangs in the balance at this time. For over four months, the Hamas leadership in Gaza has incited tens of thousands of Palestinian to launch helium balloons and ingenious kites with firebombs attached at Israeli villages across the border. To date, thousands of acres of Israeli farmland and fields have been torched and many small animals have been killed in the inferno. No Israeli civilians have been killed but there have been several close calls - that's probably why Israel has not declared all-out war on Hamas. The IDF has responded with surgical airstrikes on Hamas targets inside Gaza while snipers have shot Palestinians launching the firebombs and also trying to break through the border fence.

At the moment, Egypt, Israel's peaceful Arab neighbor, is working overtime to come up with a solution for ending the current conflagration. If the crisis does escalate into a war it would be the fourth in recent years. To date, the improvised firebombs have proven to be highly successful, and Israel's hi-tech wizards have yet to find an effective response. Although, several thousand Israeli residents in the border area are, understandably, incensed over being firebombed day and night. Netanyahu and Lieberman have taken the advice of IDF Cheif of Staff Gadi Eizencot and not gone to war again with Gaza despite the provocation.

First the facts: Poland itself was invaded by Nazi Germany at the outset of WWII. At the same time, there are reams of documented evidence, including photographs, proving that many Poles participated in pogroms and reporting Jews to the Nazis. Granted, there was a smaller number of some 6,000 Polish citizens who risked their lives in saving Jews and who have been rightly honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. The bitter controversy flared last February when the Polish Parliament passed a law that imposed a three-year prison sentence on anyone who contended that the Poles had collaborated with the Nazi regime. There was immediate outrage in Israel and among many historians who had researched the Holocaust. The clash even threatened to sabotage relations between Jerusalem and Warsaw.

For 12 weeks, thousands of Gaza's men, women, and children have been trying to break through the border fence into Israel. Israeli soldiers have stood in the breech with marksmen opening fire at the leaders and Hamas terrorists who are leading their charge. Over 130 Palestinians have been killed and thousands more wounded (including a female medic that was also filmed throwing firebombs into Israel). The Palestinians have been burning tires that create huge clouds of black smoke that pour into Israel. Using this for cover, Hamas terrorists among the civilians try to get as close to the border as possible to open fire at the Israelis.

It is fair to say that the force and determination of the Palestinian violence first took the IDF by surprise. This resulted in over 60 Palestinians being killed on one day. The troops were ordered that on no account would the Palestinians be allowed to cross the border and symbolically mark what they call "the march of return". At present they have succeeded in torching thousands of acres of Israeli farmland by sending incendiary kites and balloons over the border.

The violence along the Israel-Gaza border has spiraled out of control. In fact, it will likely get worse before it gets better. The background: in order to understand what is going on today it is necessary to put it in the Barbra Tuchman, "Looking back from the light on the stern." The two million or so Palestinians living in Gaza are led by Hamas, extreme as they get, focused on the destruction of the Jewish State. It's no two-state solution - it's winner takes all. In the Six-Day War, the IDF occupied Gaza and Israel came and built settlements there. However, in 2005, PM Ariel Sharon dismantled all the settlements and withdrew IDF forces to the Israeli border. Now, instead of exploiting Israel's pullback and seeking a similar withdrawal from the occupied West Bank, the Palestinians converted Gaza into a launchpad for terrorism against Israel. (This despite the fact that American officials quietly advised the Palestinians to call off the terrorism as this would enable them to seek a similar Israeli pullout from the West Bank.) However, this would have required the Palestinians to recognize Israel as the Jewish State. This would have meant the Palestinian refugees would not be returning to their former homes in Israel.

"Why Natalie Portman was wrong about accepting a prize in Israel." That was the title of an article I was writing when the news started coming in. Ten Israeli high school students in their senior year were either missing or in critical condition after being caught in a flash flood roaring down a Negev Wadi. The whole country was fearful and spellbound. The previous day every radio and TV station had been warning not to hike in that area because torrential rains could trigger dangerous flash floods in the narrow gullies.

After a week of violent demonstrations against the regime, over twenty protesters have been killed and hundreds more carted off to Iran's notorious prisons. There some them may be executed and others tortured. Iran's chief of Staff, Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, has declared that the sudden wave of protests has been suppressed - game over. However, his declaration may be wishful thinking according to Analyst Menashe Amir. Skyrocketing prices, rampant unemployment, and a failing economy run by Islamist fanatics will continue to fuel public unrest whether the Ayatollahs like it or not. Iran's young, educated, and ambitious generation face a bleak future and feel they have nothing to lose. Take for example this anguished and telling plea by a single mother whose husband was killed fighting abroad. In the midst of a demonstration she declared:

'I have three children and no job. My husband was killed fighting in the army. I have no money and have been forced into prostitution in order to feed my children. No one helps me!'

Last Friday, Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, a disabled person who uses a wheelchair, who participated in a protest meters from the border fence in Gaza, was killed. Israel was widely criticized for killing Abu Thuraya and in some cases accused that an IDF sniper deliberately shot him.

Speaking in Saudi Arabia, Hariri also said he feared for his life. And with good reason – in 2005 Hezbollah terrorists apparently assassinated his father Rafik Hariri, who then served as Prime Minister. Four Hezbollah suspects are being tried in absentia by the International Court in the Hague. The Hariri family is Sunni Muslim while Iran and Hezbollah are Shiite. But not only Lebanon is being threatened by Tehran. In Hariri's words:

'Iran is sowing fear and destruction in several Middle East countries'.

In Iran, the international inspectors have come and gone after giving the Iranians a clean bill of health – they are abiding by the nuclear accord worked out with the Great Powers over two years ago. Only one glaring problem: the Iranians refuse categorically to allow the nuclear watch-dogs to enter their military installations! And where else would the Iranians carry out clandestine nuclear weapons research if not inside bases they have declared to be off limits? In fact, in the past, Israel disclosed that it had intelligence showing that the Iranians had conducted secret research on detonators for A-bombs at the Parchin base. The Iranians denied it, but later the IAEA confirmed the Israeli charges. So who is to say this is not happening again at other Iranian military installations?

Moreover, Yukiya Amano, the IAEA's own director has just declared that his inspectors need access to all 'relevant locations', that is Iranian military bases. Amano told AP:

'The IAEA has access to all locations without distinction between military and civilian locations'.

Israelis must brace up to terror attacks of one kind or another - it is part of the nation's struggle for survival. None are easy, but some hit harder than others.

Thursday morning 8:38 AM in Kiryat Arba in Judea-West Bank:

Thirteen-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel is sleeping in her bed alone in her home. The summer vacation has already begun and Hallel, an ardent dancer is sleeping-in after performing the night before in Jerusalem.

A seventeen-year-old Palestinian from the nearby town of Bani Na’im jumps over the Israeli security fence built around the community sounding the alarm at the security headquarters. The terrorist races to the nearest Israeli home and enters. It is still not clear if the door or a window was left open. Armed with a knife, he rushes to the children’s' room, where Hallel is apparently still sleeping, and stabs her eight times.

In the Middle East, Russian Air Force pilots are at it again. Recently they startled two US Navy vessels by roaring over their decks in a mock attack, and now they have threatened an Israeli jet, apparently on a peaceful reconnaissance flight over what was the former Syria, trying to spot more Syrian-Iran shipments of sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the American incident, President Obama viewed it as a one-time thing and did not take it too seriously - along the line of 'boys will be boys'. And Obama probably got this right - if Donald Trump were President we'd probably be in the middle of World War III with Russian's new Czar Vladimir!

Belgium schools teach their students the Holocaust. One textbook includes a caricature of a Jew on a barbed wire fence with the inscription “never again.” Just beside him, there is a Palestinian on the same fence with the inscription “once again!” The text book includes an explanation of the caricature, making clear its message: “The interpretation for ‘never again’ is what happened under Hitler will never happen again. The interpretation of ‘once again’ is what is happening today is exactly what happened under Hitler. Concentration camps were fenced off by barbed wire and today the border between Israel and Palestine is barbed wire and a wall.”

Iran's radical Revolutionary Guards didn't waste any time. Just days after the 'moderates' were thought to have made gains in the election, the real rulers of Iran launched more ballistic missiles. Those menacing missiles were painted in Hebrew with the words 'Israel must be wiped out!' Clearly this demonstration had the green light from Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The point is that ballistic missiles have one purpose - to deliver a nuclear warhead. In this case, they had a range of 2,000 kilometers (1240 miles), and they can most definitely target Israel. To their credit, the Revolutionary Guards do not want anyone to get the wrong impression that the moderates are on the ascendancy in Tehran.

Why do Hamas tunnels keep caving in? Is it only due to heavy rain and work accidents, or has Israel solved the problem of those Hamas tunnels being excavated under the border from inside Gaza? More of those tunnels have mysteriously caved-in recently - five in the past three weeks. According to Hamas, twelve of its members have been killed under the rubble. (Yes, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has admitted publicly that his men are tunneling night and day with the aim of launching terror attacks against civilians and IDF soldiers just over the border).

When Barack Obama and Israel's President, Reuven Rivlin, lit Chanukah candles in the Oval Office, they also cast some light on the truth about the U.S. -Israeli relationship. In the past, much was made about the 'bad blood' between Obama and Netanyahu - Barack Hussein Obama was a closet anti-Semite, although most of his closest friends and advisers were Jewish. On the other hand, a close aide to Obama even accused Bibi of coming close to using the N-word! The Obama-Rivlin meeting has gutted these assumptions. At the same time, it has revealed some underling truths about the Obama-Netanyahu feud over the last nearly seven years. Obama and Bibi simply had different perceptions of what policies they wanted to follow after identifying what their voters would support. Naturally, they were democratically elected.

Faith in 'the process' is at an all time low. Even the eternally out-of-touch Obama administration has taken off the rose colored glasses and admitted it is unlikely that Israel and the Palestinians will reach a peace agreement in the coming year due to the various political challenges facing them. Indeed, yet another contrived round of bilateral negotiations between the newly formed right-wing Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority (that has historically shown no desire to agree to even the most generous of Israeli concessions) would likely be doomed to an even greater failure than the peace talks of 2014.